11 Reasons To Pick Up Pole Dancing As A Sport

Pole dancing is regarded as a form of sport and art, especially for fitness activities. Most people take up this sport as a hobby, with the present increase in its popularity across countries. Pole dancing is believed to have originated in the 12^th century, which is about 800-900 years ago. It involved the use of poles in acrobatic entertainment in India. The Mallakhamb and Chinese poles began in India.

Let's talk about these poles. The Mallakhamb was a traditional Indian sport made of a wooden pole and was mainly performed by the men. With the Chinese pole, performances had 20 feet high poles that performers would climb and leap between the two poles. 

In the 1920s, dancers attracted crowds by sensually gyrating on the wooden tent poles. In 1950, there was the introduction of the pole to a broader audience. In 1957, the video Jailhouse rock increased the popularity of pole dancing, and afterward, the pole dancing moved from the tents to the bars.

Since the 1980s, it has seen the incorporation of athletic moves and climbs with the first inventions seen in Canada and the United States. In the 1990s, it started to be taught as art by a Canadian who created the first pole training video to be used for fitness exercises.

Since then, pole dancing has been conceived as a recreational sport. It was recognized as a sport in September 2016 with the inclusion of numerous competitions across the world. In the same year, a story on the attempt of some pole dancers was covered. It stated that the pole dancers distanced themselves from the strippers for their style of dance, which was highly encouraged in the strip clubs.

Dances help to enhance your cognitive functioning. Not only does this help in physical acts but also memory improvements through the visualization of your dance steps.

Pole dance has become accessible to everyone. This is in terms of ages where its favorable to people of all ages say from 18 to upper 60s. This means that you don’t have to be young to engage in pole dancing. It's further accessible by people of all professions who feel like taking part in this dance.

With the daily routines, you might find yourself doing the same thing over and over, thus leading to monotony. However, when you engage in this dance, it not only becomes a new activity but also helps to kick you out of the comfort zone. Additionally, with the new styles and moves, you can be sure to keep learning new things and moves daily.

This dance enhances the function of your brain as well as physical fitness. With the dance comes increased heart rates, which help to bring more oxygen to your tissues. It further engages your full body during workouts, which helps you to gain the ability to defy gravity as well as gain strength. 

With the repeated lifting of your body weight for a certain time, particularly the upper body, core, and thighs, it helps you as a dancer to incredibly gaining body strength.

Sometimes being an adult can be boring, especially if you don't have something else to do apart from your normal routines. When you engage in pole dancing, you can spice up your life and daily routines to make life more fun.

You carry a lot of weight from relationships, work, and kids' diet, among others. With pole dancing, it calls for 60 minutes alone where you concentrate 100% on your dancing without life's distractions. Studios for pole dancing are also fun, and they allow you to be sexy without any judgments.

For pole dancing, you must be confident with yourself. In the pole classes, the instructor teaches you to be confident in your body shape conquering new moves. With the increased chances to engage in pole dancing, your confidence builds up, making it easy and fun for you.

With the intense exercise and muscle stretching at the pole, it helps to improve your mental health. This, in turn, helps you to get goodnight sleeps.

If you are struggling with weight loss, you should try pole dancing because one training class can have you burning up to 500 calories. With the intense workouts for your full body exercise, these dances may lead to sustainable weight loss for the period you engage in the workouts.

This is the best and quickest way for you to consider if you want to lose excess fats by working out at the same time, engage in recreational activities.

If you enroll in this dance, bonding tends to be mandatory. It is through bonding that you learn each other's weaknesses, strengths. That bond results in friendship, and this makes it easy for you to feel free to look as foolish as you would like.

In pole dancing classes, you get individual attention from the instructor, which makes it easy for you to be corrected without being ignored. By so doing, the instructor becomes aware of your strengths and weaknesses that he/she helps you to work on.

Well, now that you know some of the reasons to pick up pole dancing, it is also appropriate to let you know about the ugly truth about the same, and this is especially on bruising. Pole bruises are some of the things you come across during your pole journey. Even though these bruises can be stopped, they are inevitable; therefore, pole dancers wear these bruises as their pride.

With the nature of the sport, pole dancing mainly involves pressure and grip. Pole dancing further calls for much skin exposure and little clothing, and by this, you become susceptible to increased bruise risks and friction burns.

Additionally, there are two types of bruises:

• Bruises from knocking the pole
• Pressure bruises

Injuries from knocking the pole, are most common with beginners as they learn to spin and invert. It is mainly caused when you concentrate on what one leg does as the other one swing around. This leaves your knee knocking against the pole.

Pressure bruises are common to dancers at all levels. They are caused when your body is squeezed to the pole. These mainly occur on your inner thighs and at the top of our feet.

However, here are some of the ways to deal with these bruises.

Adding ice directly to your skin after being bruised helps to combat the pain you experience

It is effective in the bruised area by causing speedy healing

The gel has anti-inflammatory properties hence will help you to reduce swelling

Covering bruises may include use of makeup however this doesn’t help to heal the bruises. 

There are also precautions that you may take during the pole dances to avoid the occurrence of these bruises.

Pole dances do not require you to rush in the exercise as the rush will have you getting bruises from the pressure you come into contact with. Knowing the points that you will be in contact with, helps you to know what places to take precautions to avoid bruises.

When you are given a move to practice, do not overdo it. Overdoing the moves means that you cause strain to the parts engaged, which will, in turn, cause bruises.

Light grips on the poles help you to avoid causing more friction that will result in bruises.

Pole dancing has become popular as a form of exercise among dancers for both aerobic and anaerobic workouts. It is worth noting that you require muscular endurance in exotic dancing. It further requires you to have maximum strength and flexibility.

The dance helps to improve your health with proficient and rigorous body movements. However, pole dancing comes with some effects, especially bruises, that are a result of pressure during the dance or knocks by the poles.

Finally, pole dancing has been encouraged for creating women empowerment through building self-confidence among women who engage in this game.